Campaign: Perpetrator and victim are two different things, says sister of man murdered by loyalists

Shortly after midnight, loyalist gunmen wearing balaclavas burst into their Kerrsland Drive home in east Belfast and murdered him at the top of the stairs.

Cyril was not the intended target of the killers. They’d gone to the wrong house and murdered the 51-year-old retired teacher and keen artist.

Brother and sister were within two weeks of moving to a new home in Randalstown when the attack happened.

Colette is speaking out as part of a News Letter and Ulster Human Rights Watch campaign to get the government to implement the Victims’ Payment Scheme.

For Colette, life has never been the same: “I lost companionship. I lost help. I lost someone I could talk to about different things. It’s just not the life I should have been living.”

Like other innocent victims, Colette is hurt and angry over the failure to get the scheme off the ground.

She says: “I think it’s disgusting that people can’t get what they are entitled to get. All because someone who may have been involved in something wants it when he is probably a perpetrator.

“And I think there’s no way you can say that a perpetrator can be a victim. They’re two different things.

“I don’t know how many years it is since they’ve been talking about this and nothing has happened. I can’t see it ever being fixed.

“I think it would be an acknowledgement of what happened to them should never have happened as well as obviously helping them financially in their day-to-day lives.”